


the war is the story of our lives

by imgoingtocrash



Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016), Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Angst, Exploring the bonds between parents and their children in wartime, F/M, Family Feels, Fluff, Found Family, Future Fic, Marriage & Parenting, Post-Rogue One, Rated M for Mild Sexual Content/References/Jokes, Rebelcaptain Secret Santa 2018, References to peripheral SW works, Star Wars: The Force Awakens Spoilers, Star Wars: The Last Jedi Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-28
Updated: 2018-12-28
Packaged: 2019-09-29 06:52:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 13,237
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17198645
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/imgoingtocrash/pseuds/imgoingtocrash
Summary: “I’m joining the Resistance. With or without your approval.”In that moment, the life Jyn and Cassian carved out for themselves—this life of after, of almost dying so many times for each other, of slowly shaking the fear and violence off for peace and, oh, so much love, of family and friends and a community that was their own—it shatters.Over thirty years after the Galactic Civil War, Cassian and Jyn are confronted with the possibility of another war that could impact them, the next generation, and the shape of the galaxy to come.





	1. THE BEFORE

**Author's Note:**

  * For [sunburnracing (natblack1971)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/natblack1971/gifts).

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy Holidays! This is my gift for Rebelcaptain Secret Santa 2018 for the lovely [sunburnracing](http://sunburnracing.tumblr.com)! Their prompt was “what would Jyn and Cassian be doing during the events of The Force Awakens and The Last Jedi”, and just like with my last gifted fic _i’m scared of what’s behind and what’s before_ , I felt I couldn’t answer that question without establishing some of what happened before. Some of my headcanons from the previously mentioned fic are mentioned here, so if you want to consider them connected you can, but in general this is its own thing.
> 
> Check out the photoset I made for this [here](http://imgoingtocrash.tumblr.com/post/181491093774/the-war-is-now-the-story-of-our-lives-by).

_“I had talked and lived war for six years, and I was longing to pay attention to something—anything—else. But that is like wishing I were someone else. The war is now the story of our lives, and there’s no subtracting it.” — The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows_

 

* * *

 

Jyn wakes on her side in the dark, staring at the stars outside their bedroom window. Her actually having been asleep might be a stretch—it’s more she just got comfortable in the warmth of Cassian’s arms and dozed until he moved around her and captured her attention again.

He’s always been good at that—bringing her out of her own head and back to the present. Maybe not always by pressing soft, tender kisses from her neck down to one of her breasts but, well, there are worse strategies in the galaxy. In response she hums appreciatively, running a hand through his hair—the grays mixed in throughly with the remaining dark strands. She pulls him to her chest instead of encouraging him, currently sated and not wanting for anything more than his breath against her skin and watching the attentive way he listens to her heart beating under her chest.

He settles there, but continues motion with a hand against her thigh. A tap, a stroke—words? Old, abandoned Alliance codes?—She’s unsure, but finds the motions more comforting than teasing.

Cassian has become better about such stillness as they’ve grown older. She supposes that’s partially supplementary to their ages—the crows feet deepening around his eyes, wrinkling skin on them both, old scars and injuries that act up more often than not. 

Jyn thinks there’s a youth in them too, though, in their spirits. In a life after war that they’ve grown into—that looks so unexpectedly good on them despite them both being so afraid of it initially. They weren’t sure what it would look like, what to expect, and that was hard for two distrusting, sometimes uncompromising individuals like themselves. But they had each other, and the rest of Rogue One, and the thousands of people they served with in the war and befriended, and really, that’s what this life of _after_ has been composed of.

A life she feels is so _deserved_. Two Death Stars, enough scares over injury and almost-death for five lifetimes let alone two, and the end of a war that tore more than their own families apart—it had to be for something. She’d gained her hope back for the first time since she was a child, Cassian had returned it to her—that had to _mean_ something. In these last—over thirty years, gods, it often seemed like only a few—she’d _made_ it mean something by building their life together.

First came their marriage—at first a quick, quiet affair in a small base with only Rogue One in attendance. Mostly done for the rights that came with it, but for love too. It was only after that, after establishing themselves in the Yavin IV New Republic settlement, that they really got to feel what being married meant. That they were together every morning and night, no longer separated by missions to other planets and emergencies on a galactic scale. Living in a community of their fellow soldiers and their families, healthily sprouting what was once a full-time military installation fighting the Empire into a place that really felt like a home for everyone involved.

Then, just as unexpectedly, the kids. In the beginning, she’d simply been mentoring the seemingly multiplying children of the settlement. It had started with Poe Dameron—teaching him to fight when the urge to rage at the loss of his mother turned playful stick-lightsaber matches into fights with his friends over emotions he couldn’t understand. It seemed to center him in the same way flying his mother’s ships in tight quarters often did, but scared his grieving father much less. 

From there, other friends thought giving their kids somewhere to let out their infinite energy was healthy. She was more or less a babysitter teaching kids what Saw had once taught her in a much less harsh tone, becoming more popular than most of the teachers at the one school Yavin IV had created for itself. 

(Which, to Cassian’s amusement, she didn’t understand, because she wasn’t exactly the nicest, _softest_ instructor either. She had never considered herself a ‘kid’ person until she had about ten of them constantly trailing after her asking for tips on their forms, or personal advice, or about all the cool rumors and stories they’d heard about Rogue One from the newly established history books, _Ms. Jyn, please, can’t you tell us a story after practice?_ )

Deciding to have one of their own after that was then a choice: simply do or don’t. It had been quietly discussed or hinted at between them a few times—more than a single bedroom in their home, the blushes from both of them when older relatives of friends commented on how cute their kids would be one day, and a few throwaway comments from Chirrut about giving him more people to spoil while Baze simply chided his husband not to rush ahead as usual.

After rebooting K-2SO, they’d considered him a bit like a kid, except he didn’t have much to do but follow Cassian around the military base or deal with Jyn’s students with his monotone snark. Not to mention any comparison to being their child would probably cause him to balk. (Especially considering how he’d gotten destroyed in the first place saving _their_ lives.)

Then all of a sudden it wasn’t a scare that turned out to be the flu, but a real decision to make. Jyn was scared of being a mother, about what that would look like when she’d barely had her own for long. Cassian was afraid of making a new life, of bringing it into a world that had contained so much darkness—some of which he’d contributed to during the war. In the end, though, they’d realized that at some point along the line, in this After The War they’d feared, they’d become happy. Not just satisfied, but calmer, easier to smile, to laugh. They’d become proud of the galaxy and life they’d made, and they really _wanted_ to bring a child into it.

Lira Erso-Andor, her name inspired by Jyn’s mother and a list of baby names they couldn’t stop nitpicking to death, came into the world in 13 ABY.

Jyn always argued that Lira resembled Cassian more than her. His skin color and brown eyes won the genetic battle, her hair, height, and more round facial shape becoming the only real clue of their daughter’s combined parentage. On top of that, she was so quiet, like Cassian now, like him supposedly even before he’d given his so young life to the Alliance. 

It took her a long time to bother talking, even though Lira understood them just fine. She would hold Cassian’s hand and observe the world around her, finally spilling about her entire day when she came home, some details even Cassian had ignored colored so beautifully in her young eyes. 

Then again, she was like Jyn too—she observed so much, stayed so quiet, and then all of a sudden would cause trouble and make a mess before they’d even realized: writing on the walls when their backs were turned or getting into fights at school, even if she was just trying to be protective of her friends. Even though Jyn had given Lira all the training and discipline she herself had received, considering Jyn was and is often the same way…it was sort of unsurprising that it didn’t really work.

Motherhood is a lot of things to her over the years, but Jyn most finds herself proud of Lira, the person, friend, and daughter she’d become with their help and now all on her own.

Through a more unconventional process came Dev. There were plenty of kids suffering during and after the war. The Empire took their slow and sweet time disintegrating, and doing so only meant certain planets and even entire species took longer to assist than others. Even with the New Republic’s formation, it wasn’t a perfect galaxy. 

Dev’s parents—his biological parents—were lost on one of the planets that took the longest to be rid of Imperial presence, killed by stormtroopers who shot out in desperation rather than surrendering to the Alliance troops. A few stray bullets were all it took to leave more war-torn children without parents, without siblings, without friends. The Alliance brought what children they could to available shelters on other planets when other familial caretaker options were non-existent, and Dev—barely a year old—was among them.

They hadn’t been looking to adopt, but really, it was all Bodhi’s fault. 

After the war, he’d continued piloting. The job of pilots after the war was similar to his old one—passenger transports of government officials, cargo transfers from planet to planet—but he claimed he still got to see the friends he’d made in the military quite often working such jobs with them or by visiting their planets, and found flying was an assistance with his anxiety more than anything the medical community could try to provide.

It just so happened that his trip to Yavin IV this time was bussing a group of frazzled caretakers and their twenty charges to the planet. Foster homes across the galaxy did this from time to time, promoting fostering and adoption by giving potential foster families face-to-face time with the kids they might be caring for.

Some of the families on Yavin IV were likely more excited than this particular facility had been prepared for. Since a large percentage of their settlement was composed of previously employed Alliance soldiers or presently employed New Republic soldiers working at the base, most knew firsthand what had been inflicted upon the children in the galaxy during the war. Couples who had met during the war or families that felt they had a place for a new member were eager to consider fostering and adoption as a way to bring more light into the galaxy.

Cassian and Jyn simply hadn’t been one of them. Lira was still only two, after all, and Jyn had all of the kids under her care at combat training as well, even if she only cared for them part-time.

Then Bodhi, sneaky little nerfherder that he was, surprised them with a visit, little Dev at eight standing there next to him with crossed arms, an unimpressed pout on his face. Bodhi had whisper-claimed to them that he was thinking of adopting Dev—the only kid who had been quiet the entire flight—when in reality he had tricked them into falling for the kid by dinnertime.

He was prickly and resilient to all attempts at activity. (Answering their questions? Silence. Playing with Lira? Lame. Risking his life like Poe on the tree swing? No. Annoying K-2SO? Too easy.) Jyn tried a different method. (“Wanna go punch stuff?” “…like what?”) 

After the initial visit, the foster facility workers described that the elongated time in foster care seemed to have turned him a bit sour to the experience of traveling around the galaxy asking to be adopted. Where other kids in the foster home seemed to deal with things by running around screaming and playing out their energy or fear, Dev was angry at the galaxy in a way only focused, painstaking, teeth-pulling sorts of maneuvers would help with. Punching Jyn’s bag, sitting in silence until he deigned he wanted to talk, or showing Lira how to do something she was struggling with seemed to capture his fleeting interest best. It was hard to predict when he’d engage, but at least he was more interactive with them by the end of their time together than when they started.

Which Bodhi still to this day claims is what he predicted would happen, because it’s exactly how he’d first gotten them to come out of their shells. Making them come get drinks in the base’s cantina after their shifts or playing round after round of Dejarak in silence until they found something to talk about forced them to become comfortable—so much that they didn’t really notice that he’d done all of it to bond them as a team and as friends until they were essentially inseparable. Dev was a lot like them, and he’d picked up on it after piloting in an enclosed space with the kid for a few hours.

So then it was Cassian, Jyn, K-2SO, Lira, and Dev. In their house on Yavin IV, all trying to fit themselves together as a family. So, for a while Dev was a little snot, Lira cried from the chaos and lack of order when chaotic days occurred at least twice a week, and K-2SO simultaneously complained about both of their kids while spoiling them and letting them hang all over him.

Looking back on it, though, Jyn is grateful. Oh, and how she’s looking back on it. Because Dev is at one of the New Republic Academies in the Hosnian System, about to graduate, and Lira is about to finish school, and maybe she’ll leave too, or join the New Republic base here right away, maybe get sent somewhere else in the galaxy on assignment. Which means they’re facing a real empty nest situation here, and it’s kind of scary and sad.

“Where are you right now?” Cassian asks, voice buzzing through her from his resting place on her chest.

“I’m here,” she says, moving her hand to curl around his neck. “Just…thinking about the kids.”

He hums. “Thinking about how we’re getting old?”

“A little, yeah. And about how much I miss Dev already, even though he still comes home on breaks while his friends take vacations. I don’t want Lira to leave.”

“Might be nice, though, in a way.” His fingers move from her outer thigh to closer inside. “No more muffling yourself in the pillows.”

“I’m not _that_ loud,” she grumbles, smacking at his hand under the covers, which he swiftly dodges.

“My point is, we’ve been on Yavin a long time, now, minus a few small trips. Might be nice to take a vacation. See more of the galaxy, since we helped save it and all.”

“It doesn’t always seem so saved, Cass.” The New Republic government is still half filled with people arguing amongst themselves for their own planets rather than working together as one unit. Not to mention the chaos that ensued when Leia had to leave over the controversy of Darth Vader being her father (which, as Galen Erso’s daughter, Jyn has called stupid multiple times).

“No politics in bed, please.”

“Fine. Besides, we did go off planet to the Academy Initiation, and then we’ll go to Dev’s graduation soon. We rented a ship and everything then.”

“We stayed on Bodhi’s couch with Lira in the guest room for initiation. I’m not sure that counts as a vacation.”

“Fine, if we did go somewhere, where would you want to go?”

“The beach?”

“Very funny.”

“Go watch a Five Sabers race live?”

“No team has been as good since Han stopped coaching, and you know it. Plus, I’ve never been into racing as much as _betting_ on racing. That’s the only reason I ever knew so much about it.”

“True. Also, you’re a terrible pilot.”

“Hey,” Jyn sits up to get him off of her chest and properly glare. “I mean, you’re right, but only Bodhi is allowed to say it.”

Cassian smiles, sitting up to pull her close. “Sorry.” He kisses her, slower than when they started the night, passionate and giggling over after-dinner drinks while Lira made dramatic, disgusted faces. “How about this? We stay in this bed and never leave unless the kids visit.”

“Mmm.” She initiates the kiss this time, hand rubbing up and down his back, fingering the surgical scars against the bones that the bacta never quite healed. “Now that’s tempting.”

Cassian looks at her lips, thinking, then slowly drags his eyes up to her own. “I’m happy to have lived with you this long, Jyn. I never thought…I just want to keep being with you, like this. Anything else, going anywhere else…it’s all secondary to that.”

“I know. We have all the time in the world to make decisions about the future, yeah?”

“Yeah,” Cassian replies, situating Jyn closer, running his fingers down her torso and legs, noticing the chill of the night and pulling the sheets up around them as he leans back in to pepper her throat with kisses before she can say anything else.


	2. THE BEGINNING

Maybe it was their comfort with their life on Yavin IV that made them blind. They’d become too closed off to the rest of the galaxy, too insular. Maybe that was how the First Order dug their claws in, by preying on people like them, who had worked so hard for a shred of peace and were desperately trying to enjoy it. So much that they weren’t the ones who noticed when it all started crumbling so suddenly.

No, that burden fell instead to the next generation. To people like Dev.

 

 

It’s a quiet morning when Dev makes an unexpected and sudden return from the Academy. 

He’s only a semester away from graduation, going into the administration track, to being a leader. It sounded like a lot of paperwork to Jyn, much like Cassian’s current position at the New Republic base as a General, but they are proud of him regardless. (Especially considering they’re pretty sure Lira wants to be a pilot and join the New Republic Fleet like Poe, since she adores her Uncle Bodhi and has been doing flight simulators on her datapad since the first time Cassian let her sit in his lap on a rare trip off-planet. Jyn doesn’t even want to think about the dangers around _that_.)

Cassian is at the stove, arguing with K-2SO (“My caf intake is abnormally high on purpose, Kay.”) and making them some kind of warm porridge for breakfast. Jyn is quietly and unobtrusively watching her daughter mess around on the holonet while pretending to watch the news. It’s probably a terrible ruse because she almost never watches the news, but if Lira notices she doesn’t say anything, too preoccupied with whatever is causing the strange look on her face that made Jyn particularly nosey in the first place.

The door opens with the click of a key being turned in the lock, and that catches everyone’s attention, since they aren’t expecting any visitors, and only a handful of people (Rogue One, the family, and a few trusted neighbors,) even have keys to the house.

Standing there is Dev—her son who grew up so quickly. Where he was once a short, bony tangle of limbs, he’s now as tall as Cassian at twenty-three, and making as many short jokes as possible to his mother and sister. The beard on his face is trimmed close like Cassian taught him, but ruffled, as if he’s been messing with it the whole way here. Then his eyes…force, he looks tired, like he’s been studying for finals and partying all night back to back. Something is wrong, and when she looks at Cassian she’s glad to see he recognizes it too.

“Dev!” Lira shouts, dropping the datapad in favor of running top speed at Dev in their usual routine where he spins her around in a fit of hugging and yelling at each other. Instead of doing that, however, Dev simply leans down to gather Lira up as close to him as possible in a tight embrace. “What are you doing home?”

“I…” Dev sighs, runs his hand through his hair, longer than he usually lets it grow out. “It’s a long story.”

“Come here,” Jyn says, straight to the point, raising her arm to invite Dev to sit beside her. “Doesn’t seem like you want to drag it out.”

So Dev fits himself into the crook of her arm, adjusting himself so that her arm doesn’t stretch too much around his shoulders. He looks almost scared to take her touch—scared of her disappointment, maybe? Cassian sits on the arm of the couch, despite the side-eye she gives him that means _that’s not good for your back_ , and feels the touch of his hand against hers that says _I need you_ , so that settles it.

Lira stands for a second, looking at the bag at the door—a full duffle bag Dev only usually brings home for breaks—seeming to question if she should stay before Cassian holds a hand out to beckon her to them, giving her a side-hug from where he sits before she moves herself to Dev’s other side quietly.

“I dropped out of the Academy.” Dev cringes, the bullet bitten, face expectant. Which, Jyn can’t lie, normally she might be a little more angry. But something about how he’d come in the door so quietly…

“That’s not all, is it?”

Dev sighs, even the idea of his heart being heavy weighing on her. “I didn’t want to quit, at first. I don’t really want to quit at all, but—you have to believe me, Mama, I had to. The idea that I would have my head buried in my textbooks, or go off into the government pretending that everything was fine when it’s not, when it hasn’t been all this time—“

Dev shakes his head, as if shaking off the nerves. “Poe came to see me. He’s been back at the Academy a lot, lately. Most of us just assumed he was the New Republic’s newest political strategy or something—showing off that he was their top pilot and we’d all be happy like him soon, protecting the galaxy and working together. Then he came to see some of us individually and he said…he had a message from Senator— _General_ Organa.”

“She hasn’t gone by that title in a very long time,” Cassian murmurs, hand worrying at his chin in thought. “Even though she was removed from the political sphere, the only reason she would call herself that is…”

Dev nods, solemn. “There’s a group calling themselves the First Order. At first they seemed like any other enterprising, power-hungry outfit: offering protection services to planets here and there, dressing themselves up in old BBY-era ‘trooper suits. But General Organa found out there was more to it, somehow. She’s gathered information, gathered others from the old days. The First Order have been increasing their presence, and she’s worried.”

“He was recruiting,” Jyn whispers. Poe, the boy she’d taught to fight, to shoot a blaster, all during peacetime, all for the sake of giving him a goal to focus on. And now he was using it to become an echo of one of the many Rebel recruiters that would approach young people on the sly to assess their political leanings towards the Empire. Force, history ran in circles. And here she was, having taught her children that fighting for hope was always the right choice, to not be the way she had before she found Rogue One.

“General Organa is leading a resistance. It’s small, but according to Poe, they’ve gotten enough resources and soldiers to start putting up a real fight.”

“And you want to join,” Jyn says. Not a question, but a fact. He’s certainly not the first to be recruited into this fight that he claims will be shaping into another war, and he won’t be the last. “Leia recruited my son into her army and she couldn’t be even be bothered to call. After I defended her to _everyone_ —“

“Jyn.” Cassian pulls her back down to the couch, the essence of calm to balance her. “She probably didn’t even know who Poe was recruiting. That doesn’t make her Darth Vader, or anything close to an Imperial. I expect Leia would ream him out right now if you asked her to—”

“That’s not the point!”

“I know,” Cassian affirms. He turns to Dev. “I know that you think you’re doing the right thing. I know that the idea of people out there being hurt, oppressed—I know the _weight_ of it. I have lived with that weight for a long time. You don’t know what you’re asking to be a part of. If this turns into a real fight, into a war…”

“Then I’ll fight it. Just like you and Mama did!”

“Your mother and I took risks—desperate, stupid risks in the name of a cause that was almost wiped out entirely before the conflict even started. I don’t regret that, and I have always taught you and Lira to fight when it matters. But it is _dangerous_ to go charging head-first into a fight when you don’t know anything about your enemy.”

Dev stands, looking down at his father in what’s possibly an attempt at intimidation. His voice goes flat. “I know that they’re extorting people for protection when they’re the ones causing people pain. I know that they’ve got armored soldiers with blaster rifles, and they’re aiming them at people’s heads. This conflict is more serious than you realize, Papa. The First Order is coming out of the shadows soon, and they won’t stop unless people like me—like _us_ do something about it. I thought out of anyone, you two would understand that.”

“Being those kinds of people means sacrifice, Dev!” Cassian raises his voice, a rare occurrence that causes Dev to be a little speechless. “The things we did with Rogue One weren’t simply bedtime stories—we told you those things to remind you how hard it was to get where we are.” Cassian then stands too, his face in Dev’s, reminding her of the moment his anger was turned at her all those years ago, after he didn’t take the shot he should have. “I have been fighting since I was six years old, and it took me more than twenty years to sleep without a weapon under my pillow. Your mother and I fought so that children like you would never have to know the kind of fear that living in a war brings. I won’t _let_ that happen to my children.”

The silence between them is charged. Cassian has so few emotional triggers, but the war and its sacrifice has always been one of his most sensitive. She remembers with such clarity how he used to frown at the way some of the children on Yavin IV played simplified war games—acting out famous battles, firing fake blasters, and flying invisible X-Wings while shouting which famous soldier they were impersonating. It couldn’t be helped—at least they were innocently faking war instead of having to live in it—but there was a frown on his face that always made Dev and Lira wary enough to keep their participation in such games out of the house.

Lira looks as if she wants to contribute—like she’s got something to add, but can’t decide how to phrase it, or if she should bother. Jyn herself wants them both to sit down and cool off, as angry as she also is. She doesn’t want her son, her other baby, who she got even less years with, to go to war. She doesn’t want a war at all.

“I knew that fear long before you became my father, because I lost mine. I’m twenty-three, Papa. You don’t get to tell me what I can and can’t do with my life.” Dev is the one to break the silence, and his tone begets none of the nervousness and fear his body language expressed when he first came in the door. “I’m joining the Resistance. With or without your approval.”

In that moment, the life Jyn and Cassian carved out for themselves—this life of _after_ , of almost dying so many times for each other, of slowly shaking the fear and violence off for peace and, oh, so much love, of family and friends and a community that was their own—it shatters.

Dev takes the opportunity to stomp off, stairs slapping under his feet before the door to his room, kept just as he left it, slams behind him. The bag of his things still sits by the door, and Jyn’s eyes blur for a moment, thinking only of the satchel she carried from base to base as the Rebellion moved around and around before the war’s end.

Cassian seems to deflate, still standing but looking to her for answers that she’s unsure she’s able to give. What do they tell Dev—their compassionate, brave, beautiful son—when they once took the same risks themselves all those years ago? How do they stop him from being the person they raised him to be? He’s so willing to sacrifice for others, and isn’t that supposed to be a good thing? Gods, what can they do? What should they do?

In Jyn’s absence of ability, Lira stands up and nestles herself into Cassian’s arms. She buries herself into Cassian’s chest, his instinctive response to wrap himself around her and rest his head on hers. Like he’s similarly done to Jyn a thousand times, in a thousand hugs.

Jyn joins her daughter for a moment, putting an arm around them both and giving a squeeze. She’s not sure what good it does for her, but Cassian at least seems less rigid, lifting his head and giving her that brown-eyed gaze that’s matched her own for thirty years now. He’s reading her, nodding when she disentangles herself from the two of them to go off on her own.

Jyn really wants to punch something.

 

* * *

 

Lira finds Jyn in the backyard an hour later, beating the shit out of an already taped together sandbag.

Truthfully, Jyn’s instinct was to go straight into a workout—damn warming up or changing into something more appropriate—but her body was more abused now, and the consequences for doing so were always a pain in the ass, so she’d stretched and centered her mind to make her sole focus punching the sandbag instead of something inside the house.

Punch. Shift stance. Two strikes. Back and forth and in different rhythms until it’s all her mind can entertain.

“You picturing Dev’s face on that thing?” Lira quips, jumping up and settling herself on the wooden porch’s bannister. Jyn gives Lira the side-eye—a chiding _don’t even joke about that_ on the tip of her tongue—but continues her workout.

“You don’t seem surprised,” Jyn says, because she knows her daughter. The look on her face this morning, her silence while they were talking with Dev… “Has he said something to you before?” 

It wouldn’t exactly be the first time the siblings had kept secrets between themselves. Once Dev stopped spending all of his time brooding and being disagreeable, he’d found having a little sister to follow him around to be quite enjoyable. There was a decent stretch of time where she’d follow only in Dev’s stead, which was preferable to when they later became a pre-teen and teenager who spent all their time annoying each other and complaining to Jyn and Cassian about it. Still, the growing up together, bonding, fighting…there are plenty of siblings-only discussions she’s aware that as a mother, she’s not privy to.

“I didn’t know he was going to drop out of school, or that Poe had come by and recruited him, it’s just—” Lira rubs her arms, as if feeling a chill. “It’s not exactly a secret that there’s unrest in the galaxy, Mama.”

“I’m not ignorant of that, sweetheart. I just…the idea of fighting again, sending the next wave kids off into some battle that hasn’t even started…” She leans herself against the sandbag, tapping her head against the leather. “I don’t think things like galaxy-wide conflict should be inevitable. I shouldn’t have to expect another war to start up every time I don’t read the holonet for a few days.” She turns to Lira, making a point. “And I certainly shouldn’t expect to lose my children over it.”

“You’re not going to lose him, Mama.” Lira hops down from her perch, curling her arms around Jyn’s sweaty figure, bending her head into the crook of Jyn’s neck. “We’re never gonna stop loving you. No matter what.”

“I don’t care if he hates me, Lira. I care that he’s alive. I want him to be safe, _because_ I love him.” Jyn pats a wrapped fist over Lira’s hair, stroking. “Your father and I want the best for both of you. You know that, right?” 

She’d always felt that she and Cassian were doting parents—so drained from the loss of their own parents that they’d poured excessive love into their kids. No request for extra hugs and kisses denied, sleeping in Mama and Papa’s bed when the nightmares or thunder got too loud—as long as Lira and Dev asked, Jyn and Cassian were there. Now all of this, tearing them apart.

“I know. I love you both, so much. That’s why we need to fight. For the people we love.”

“ _We_?” Jyn pushes her daughter back, holds her by the shoulders. “Lira, you are barely eighteen. You haven’t even finished school, how could you even think—?”

“It’s not a secret that the galaxy is…unsettled, right now. People at school have been saying it for a long time, talking to family on other planets, seeing the news. Dev isn’t the only one who’s been wishing they had a more direct way to do something about it. If the First Order really is behind all of this, then the Resistance is where people are going to go to fight it.” Lira sighs. “Recruitment links have been spreading around school, especially because we live so close to the New Republic base. A lot of us were already going down the military track, anyway. I’m not the only one considering signing up for the Resistance instead.”

Jyn groans, wiping her sweat-slick hair back from her face and half-burying her eye into her hand. “Your father is going to _die_. Kay will have to resuscitate him, and he’s not even built for that. Both of you, you’re gonna kill him.” Treacherous, her mind thinks: _another war might kill us both_.

But her children—her bright, brave, beautiful children—are old enough to think they want to get involved in a war, and they’re both old enough to do it without her say-so. Cassian and Jyn won’t be able to change their minds. They’re so _screwed_.

At Jyn’s words, however, Lira blanches, nervously over-gesturing with her hands. “It’s nothing concrete, and I still need to get my papers to be approved as a fighter pilot, and I still want to graduate, and—and, really, I might decide _not_ to enlist, so maybe we don’t have to tell Papa at all!” 

Jyn rolls her eyes. Cassian’s baby girl, after all.

 

* * *

 

It’s only after Jyn’s had a shower and Cassian’s piddled around pretending to work at his little station in their bedroom instead of wallowing that they really get the opportunity to talk about it privately.

Dev is going off to join the Resistance, Lira is thinking of going after him, and their empty nest is looking worse for wear, because it wasn’t supposed to be like this at all, and they’re both angry about it. It just comes across more as listless, because they’re lying in bed in the middle of the day, Jyn curled around Cassian like a giant stuffed lothcat, his hand stroking methodic circles over her shirt’s back.

“Do you think this is a punishment?” Jyn asks, vulnerable and scared, finally truly facing what this business with the First Order could mean. “Maybe it would have been better if we’d never survived Scarif, or if we’d done things differently during the war, or—“

“No. I know I haven’t always had as much faith in the Force as you, but I refuse to believe things would be better without us—without our children, or our friends. We’re not the only ones who are going to lose if things come to a head.” He tilts her head to look him in the eye. “We worked hard for this life, Jyn. I won’t start regretting it.”

“I don’t,” Jyn curls herself back against him. “I won’t. You’re right, I’m just—shit. I don’t even know what I am anymore. It’s too much.”

“If I had known this was coming, I…maybe I could have prepared myself better.”

“We did know, in a way. People around here have been talking about extortion schemes and violence rising on other planets for years. We were just too busy living day to day to think it would become anything more. We didn’t _want_ it to be anything like this, so we convinced ourselves it wasn’t.”

“Then let’s be honest,” Cassian shifts, sliding her off and using an arm to support his head so that he can look down at her on the mattress. “We have two options: we can join them in the Resistance, or we can stay here.”

She blows out a heavy breath. It’s a decision she doesn’t want to make in the first place. “Do we have to decide now?”

“Is it sticking our heads back in the sand if we don’t decide right away?”

“Mmm. I don’t think so. Not to mention, we don’t have to be on the front lines, especially with how new the Resistance is. Knowing Leia, there are a lot of positions to fill that don’t require packing our life up to go back to base living. If I remember correctly, you wanted to move here so we could stop doing that.”

“True. And working for the New Republic would probably be an asset of its own. I’d be able to keep track of the First Order from that perspective.”

“It sounds like we’re leaning towards joining another rebellion.”

“…Yes?”

“I guess so.”

“Should we tell the kids how quickly we came to that decision?”

“No. Better to let them feel bad for even thinking about leaving us all alone. But you and Dev should talk. And don’t be too upset at Lira. At least she told us about it _before_ she did anything.”

“Thank the stars for that.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was always the “main” idea of this fic, mostly inspired by _Star Wars: Battlefront II_. Specifically, while playing the Resurrection DLC with Iden and Zay. What must that be like, to have your child on the front lines? To have lost so much, to have fought for peace, only to lose it? To believe in the cause your child is fighting for wholeheartedly, but also want to keep them safe and away from the stressors and pain of war?
> 
> That was also mixed with portrayals of certain characters such as Jarek Yeager in _Star Wars: Resistance_. He was once a Rebel, but post-war has so far refused to take up spying/working for the Resistance as it currently is. He’s not the only one. Many people on that series so far underestimate the First Order, and many First Order members aren’t super public until closer to 34 ABY. So I think a lot of former soldiers would want to doubt anything like the Empire could happen again…and then it does and they’re scared.
> 
> So Cassian and Jyn here are experiencing some of everything. They love their kids, and that Dev’s heart is in the right place, but also want him to be safe and stay in their little bubble of normality and peace. But I’m forcing them out of it, because angst.
> 
> Info about the rise of the First Order and Leia’s encounter with them is at least partially from _Bloodline_ by Claudia Grey, which hints at the beginnings of First Order’s existence before _The Force Awakens_. These events are what Jyn is referring to “defending” Leia over.


	3. THE AWAKENING

The hyperspace flight to Tattooine is long.

“I don’t know why in all the worlds, Chirrut and Baze moved _there_ ,” Jyn says, hand resting on the back of the pilot’s seat where Cassian sits, her body leaned over to peer down at him. “No wonder we never visit.”

“We came for Lira’s birthday a few years back, didn’t we?” Cassian flips the switch to give K-2SO primary pilot control, leaning back to stare up at his wife, also allowing his back to pop in the process.

“That was because you believed Chirrut Imwe was going to die,” Kay says, tone reliably flat, as if remarking upon the weather.

Jyn frowns at the droid. “One of these days he will, and all of his dramatizing about it won’t be funny.”

“It wasn’t funny in the first place,” Cassian sighs, standing to stretch his legs as well. The condition of his body at sixty is surprising considering how much he’d put it through by the age of thirty. The years of training at home at his own pace instead of abusing his injuries on the battlefield have done him good.

“It was a little funny when the kids were little.” Jyn mimics either Lira or Dev, hands clasped together and eyes wide. “‘Please, oh _please_ , Mama, we have to go visit Chirrut _right now_ or he said he’ll _die_!’”

“Ah, the good old days, when they were easily tricked into doing what we wanted,” Cassian jokes.

“It is no surprise to me that both of your children quickly left home. You are not very good parents,” Kay remarks.

(Cassian thinks of those first few months with Lira, when they’d really wondered. When getting Lira to sleep one week was hard because she was sick and feverish and every night with her crying made them want to cry and wonder if they were terrible. But then they had Kay, a droid designed originally to destroy rebels and threaten Imperial citizens, picking up their daughter with his long robotic arms, decreasing her temperature against his cool metal casing, telling them both to sleep, because they were becoming increasingly useless.)

Jyn seems to think of it too, rolling her eyes instead of believing the words.

“I’m gonna grab some caf. You want anything?” Cassian asks, leaning against the doorway to the cockpit of their rented ship.

“Mmm. Depends on what we have. I’ll join you.”

“I hope that is not verbal code for sexual relations,” Kay interjects, unhelpfully. “I figured all of those out many years ago. Please don’t make me learn any more.” Cassian closes his eyes and taps his head on the wall, predicting when Jyn walks away to only to shout back.

“Just for that, I’ll make sure your auditory processors hear the sound Cassian makes when my hand strokes his di—“

“Jyn,” he interrupts, because haven’t she and Kay had enough arguments about the things they do privately that Kay has chosen to overhear and comment on later to wind them up?

“He started it.”

“I’m starting to think the kids never left.”

Jyn gives him the side-eye, lightly offended, before rummaging through the few supplies they brought on this trip. Chirrut and Baze will have plenty of food and drink at their house, but Jyn and Cassian are used to preparing for the worst and since engaging in Resistance activities, never leave home without their blasters anymore.

She hands him the package of instant caf and gets a teabag for herself, turning on the heater for lukewarm to possibly hot water that comes with the ship. He’s thought about buying them a ship of their own a few times, but before they’d only left the planet a handful of times, and now he isn’t sure he wants to be tracked down flying any ship tied to his name if the First Order comes knocking unexpectedly.

“They’ve been doing okay, though, Chirrut and Baze,” Jyn says, leaning against the cooling unit. “Tattooine is at the ass-end of the galaxy, but ever since Skywalker got all Jedi-famous it’s been a big hub for Force believers looking for a quiet place to find themselves. I think it reminds them of Jedha, in a way.”

“Bodhi says the same thing: that there’s an extra sun, but the sand is the same. Endless.”

“It’ll be good to have us all together again. Ever since this whole Resistance thing I’ve felt so…” Jyn trails off, fingernails scratching the surface of her kyber crystal where she holds it. Yet somehow, he understands what she means. It’s not just their children both being gone to work for the Resistance, or they themselves working in small ways like delivering intel or doing the paperwork a war effort requires, but no one wants. There’s something in the air, in the Force. Like the months before the discovery of the Death Star—the pieces all coming together into something unpredictable.

“Me too. It’s important to remember where it all started. Who it was all for.” He comes closer to Jyn, cupping her cheek in his hand.

“You’re so cheesy, Cass.” Jyn holds his hand against her face though, only moving away when the water is heated. She kisses his palm as a goodbye.

 

* * *

 

“Am I allowed to punch you?”

“Only below the face. You know the other pilots used to tease me about being so cute. Gotta keep up my image.”

“Oh, that’s how it is normally? I thought someone else beat me to messing it up.”

“I hate you, Jyn.”

“Love you too, Bodhi.” Jyn embraces Bodhi, ruffling up his greying hair, now shorn closer to his head instead of his traditional long and pulled back look.

Chirrut shakes his head back and forth heavily. “So much posturing, the two of you. You’ll make my old heart break.”

“Oh, hush,” Jyn says, breaking the hug. “I’m allowed to still be a little mad. He knew about this whole Resistance business from the very beginning and didn’t say a word!”

“I didn’t make Dev and Lira join! I didn’t even know they were thinking about it. That’s the whole point of us being a _secret_ organization. Leia swore me to silence.”

“Rogue One is a _team_ , Bodhi. You should have said something sooner! Prepared us for the inevitable.”

“They’re my family too, Jyn. It’s not like I want them to be out there…” Bodhi actually looks guilty for a moment, even though Cassian and Jyn never really blamed him. It was just… _surprising_ that when they’d asked to help out, Bodhi was who they were sent to. Because Leia had hoped they would help and was apparently happy to let finally let Bodhi talk to them about it.

“I know, I know. I just like giving you a hard time, nerfherder.” Jyn gives Bodhi a solid noogie, reaching up on her tiptoes as always to reach.

“Bully.”

“We have food getting cold inside, not like any of you children care. Except for Cassian,” Baze amends. “Who so graciously has offered to help me serve you cretins.”

“I cannot consume food, so I do not care.” Kay interjects.

“And except for Kay, who cannot eat because he is a droid.” Baze nods at Kay, who seems pleased at the acknowledgement and stomps off back to the ship.

“And they say parents don’t pick favorites,” Jyn faux whispers, laughing when Baze sneaks a tickle to her ribs in on their way into the desert home.

“Watch it, little sister, or you won’t get any blue milk custard.”

“He always knows how to get me,” Jyn wraps her arm around Cassian, following his lead to Chirrut and Baze’s dinner table. “Teach me your ways?”

“I suppose I can show you,” Cassian drawls, as if it’s a true bother.

“I’m not hungry anymore,” Bodhi says, a roll already in his fist clearly showing the opposite. “You guys are so gross.”

“Drop it,” Baze warns, slapping the roll from Bodhi’s hands but clearly meaning to scold them for their brewing disagreement.

Jyn sticks her tongue out at Bodhi anyway, taking her seat between Cassian and Chirrut at the table, the smaller, older arrangement of the table absent of other Rebellion friends or the Erso-Andor children.

Chirrut leads them through a quick blessing to the Force as the table finally settles, his melodic voice a reassuring touch to the scene of a family dinner. (There were many days, during the war, where Cassian refused to partake in the prayer but quietly observed. There were worse days where he felt like asking the Force for support was all he could do. Today he simply closes his eyes and thinks of Lira and Dev.)

As the meal made by Baze is passed around, Chirrut is blunt in starting the conversation they all know needs to be had. The real reason they all decided to come together today. “So, I assume you didn’t arrange this impromptu gathering just because you missed us.”

“What does the Resistance want?” Baze adds, even more straightforward.

“They didn’t ask us to come,” Jyn starts, firm. Baze and Chirrut were retired from war. They wouldn’t put the men through that again. They’d only participated in the Rebellion in the first place because they wanted to finish what the team started on Scarif. They’d left as soon as they felt their assistance was no longer required.

“Last time we talked, Dev mentioned—and Bodhi confirmed—The First Order is looking for something.” Cassian leans his elbows on the table in a moment of thought until Chirrut waves them off, his ears seeming to have picked up on the unconscious action.

“They’re looking for Luke,” Bodhi amends. “No one knows where he is—even Leia. But he’s apparently left a fail-safe to find him that the First Order is after.”

“And you thought we’d know anything about that?” Baze shakes his head. “That boy hasn’t come to seek our counsel in a very long time. We provided insight and opinion on his formation of that Jedi school of his, but we disagreed on certain aspects of honoring the past, and declined to teach the younglings. We were never Jedi, and aren’t looking to remake the Guardians with Jedha now gone.”

“We tried reaching out after that business with his young nephew, but he refused to speak with anyone, including us.” Chirrut crosses his arms, frowning in disappointment. “Long ago, after the loss of Ben Kenobi, I told him in times of darkness we must only go further into the light—that we must lean on our friends and family—but he seems to have clung to isolation instead.”

“I told him times are too changed for those old Jedi ways.” Baze huffs. “I’m not going to tell children that the cure to their problems is bottling their fear up and pretending it doesn’t exist. Look where that’s gotten him!”

“That’s not what the texts taught, and you know it, you bitter old man,” Chirrut tuts lovingly. “How they were interpreted at times, however…”

“So what you’re saying is, we’re out of luck?” Jyn asks, her elbow now perched against the table to lean her face against her fist.

“I’m saying that you should learn better manners than leaning your arms all over my table,” Chirrut scolds, knowing they all forget, even after trying to teach Lira and Dev better. Only Bodhi is able to keep such manners strictly, having had parents to teach him such things for most of his life. “Things will work out as the Force wills.”

The entire table groans obnoxiously in response.

“Haven’t you worn that line out by now?” Bodhi groans. “Is that what I’m supposed to tell the rest of the Resistance? ‘No worries, Chirrut Imwe, great Force believer, once-great Guardian of the Whills, says things will work out because the Force told him so’?”

“Is that not sufficient?”

Bodhi and Jyn groan again. Cassian just sighs. It was a long shot anyway. Everyone was getting kicked up over finding Skywalker, but very few people actually had the resources to do anything about it. It was by chance that they even knew how the First Order had obtained the first part of the intel. (And that was a loss too, in more ways than one. Another previous Alliance soldier—a defector—lost on Pillio because of the First Order, all to find San Tekka.)

“I have a feeling things will get worse before they get better,” Chirrut concedes, dealing out a scrap of what his connection to the Force presumably gives him. “But my friends, they _will_ get better. That we always have to hope.”

“Hope,” Jyn agrees, raising her glass for a toast. They all clink their glasses, reflecting the reddened light of one of Tattooine’s suns finally setting.

* * *

 

Instead of sleeping in their ship, Cassian and Jyn shared the guest bedroom of the house, much to Bodhi’s grumbling.

(“This never happens when I visit alone. I get the bed to myself. Stupid married people.”

“I’ll sleep with you, Bodhi, if you really want.”

“Shut up, Cassian.”)

They decided to only stay the night, their bags repacked by the morning. Cassian and Jyn ready to head back to Yavin IV, while Bodhi would be on course to the Resistance base on D'Qar.

The mornings always take a predictably long time. Breakfast is a whole affair where Cassian helps Baze cook while Bodhi and Jyn complain dramatically about starving. Caf is drunk by the bucketload while they all argue over who is older (Baze physically, Cassian or Bodhi emotionally, depending on who you ask).

Predictably, they aren’t close to being out the door when everyone’s data pads scream an emergency alert at the same time. The Resistance are the ones reporting, not the New Republic. Because normally the Galactic Senate would be the ones in charge of reporting such a galaxy-impacting tragedy. And the Galactic Senate is gone. In an instant, The First Order wiped out _the entire Hosnian System_.

Jyn throws her datapad across the room, body shaking with anger, with sadness, with inexplicable _rage_. Cassian wants to move to her, but his legs vibrate in time with his heartbeat, with her thoughts.

Not again, Force, not again.

Hosnian Prime is gone. Bodhi lived there. The academy Dev attended for years, where their daughter would be at this very second had she not joined the Resistance, was there. Children Jyn had practically helped raise were attending the academy, working jobs in the New Republic—all of them, wiped out in an instant.

Dev was right. The First Order was ready long before they’d realized. A machine capable of destroying an entire system of planets took a long time to build. It took credits, power, skill. It was the power of the Empire on performance-enhancing drugs. And they’d sat back for years and let it happen.

Dev—and Lira too—if the First Order had done something so massive, the Resistance wouldn’t be far behind, especially with the information about Luke’s location being the Resistance’s most pressing concern. What if they’re wrapped up in this somehow, what if they’re—

“Call the children,” Chirrut says, voice firm enough to break Cassian out of his mind. How long have they been standing here, frozen in shock and anger? Bodhi’s hand is over his mouth, tears fresh down his cheeks. Jyn’s screams, her sobs, permeate his awareness, barely muffled in Baze’s shoulder.

Three times now, machines the size of planets have tried to kill them. Twice they’ve survived. Third time’s the charm, isn’t that right?

“Cassian,” Chirrut insists, shaking him, taking his weight despite being a man so many years his senior. “We need to know if the children made it out okay. Call them. I’ve got the others.”

Cassian nods, but it’s robotic, attempting to scroll to their names in his contacts, pressing the correct buttons to call them. It’s hard to see through the blurry tears in his eyes, matching the ones in everyone else’s. He wouldn’t be surprised if the Holonet was backed up, jammed with requests to the Hosnian system, people calling to empty space through the black. If nothing in the universe truly died, were those same stars now exploded filled with the ashes of Jedhans? Aldeeranians? The lost soldiers on Scarif? He doesn’t know. It makes him sick either way.

His children, in there somewhere, unrecognizable—no, just wait for it to connect. His little girl, at five years old, smiling up at him with that damn stubborn loose tooth, arms around his leg like he’s the best toy she’s ever had—pick up damn it, pick up! The first time Dev called him Papa, hugged him and cried because he was letting go of that anger towards the past, he was so proud of his son—shit, shit, shit, how many times does he have to press connect?!

“They can’t be—“ Jyn is at his side, pulling his hands, frantically ignoring the warnings that the holo call isn’t working right now, that no one is picking up, if he just hits retry again, _please_ —! “Cassian, they can’t be dead, I can’t—“

He’s crying in earnest now, dropping the datapad to hold her instead, his knees aching against the dirt floor of the house when he finally loses the ability to stand—the sand, the sun, clutching to Jyn Erso, all he has left in this world, in this moment, it’s all going in circles again—but they’re not dying, it’s their babies, taking on this legacy. _Force, please, if you’re out there, this can’t echo,_ he thinks.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That entire family dinner scene warmed my heart as I was writing it. I felt like so much of the lead up to his had been serious (and since we’re going into TLJ, the ending too), so this whole thing was a reprieve from some of that while discussing The Issues. Also I love writing Jyn and Bodhi with the biggest sibling energy possible, and I will make every excuse to do so.
> 
> The reference to the lost soldier on Pillio is from the _Star Wars: Battlefront II_ DLC. If you’ve played it, you know who it is. I thought it deserved mention, because I enjoy the game and hope to see more of Zay.
> 
> I uh…really hurt myself with the idea of them leaning on each other in the sand, grieving, feeling the weight of the past circling around again. I had a blast writing that fluffy content and then stomped the hell all over it. I’m sorry. Thankfully you don’t have to wait to see how it resolves, since I’m putting all 4 chapters up at once.


	4. THE AFTER

“Papa?” comes a tinny voice, familiar in these last years, in all tones. His teenagers bitter and angry, his little hellions screaming about how it wasn’t their fault, his daughter’s first word, let him drop Cassian, it’s being a father and husband that matters, that’s the only name he needs.

“Papa—you there? Mama?” He and Jyn scramble on the floor towards the datapad at the same time, the holo call breaking up and weak, but there. Lira and Dev, sitting together, sweaty and tired but _alive_.

He takes Jyn’s hand, her bones digging into his own. Their family, alive.

“Oh gods, oh.” Jyn sniffs, wiping at her eyes but unable to stop the tears so suddenly, because for a moment, they thought. “Are you okay, are you safe? Where are you, we’ll come get you, we’ll—“

“Mama, no, it’s okay! I was with one of the squadrons at that—that _horrible_ thing, but I’m okay,” Lira says. “And Dev was right here on base. He wasn’t one of the ground teams. He’s okay. We’re okay.”

“We’re still coming. We’re with Bodhi, we’ll be there as soon as we can.” Cassian says, wiping his own tears into his sleeve.

“We might be compromised.” Dev’s image freezes for a moment, but recorrects. “Everyone back from destroying that monstrosity is returning to base and preparing for the worst. Everyone else is grounded. You might be flying into a death trap.”

“We need to be there!” Jyn shouts. “Like we should have been from the start! Those bastards killed an entire system, we have to—“

Lira looks offscreen for a moment, speaking to a superior by the faint “yes, sir,” that Cassian hears. “We have to go. We love you Mama, Papa. Tell everyone else we love them too, okay? We’ll call with news as soon as we can.”

“Wait, no, Lira—!”

“We love you,” Dev repeats, looking at Cassian longest, before turning to Jyn. They’d argued, had an undercurrent of petty anger in their interactions until the moment Dev left, when Cassian had broken and hugged his son and begged him to come home safe. “No matter what, we love you both so much. We’ll see you soon.”

The connection fades out and disconnects. All of them sit there, Cassian and Jyn in the floor huddled together, Bodhi, Baze and Chirrut consoling each other at the table, in the silence that follows.

* * *

 

Bodhi is homeless. He repeats this a few times to them, before they get into their respective ships and leave.

Cassian assures him that he’s not, that they’re going back to Yavin and he can stay in Dev’s room, he’s their family, he’s got a home with them. But reasonably, because of what just happened, Bodhi goes on about his now-dead houseplant, and the pictures of him and the kids that were on the walls, and his stupid too-soft mattress that he splurged too many credits on. Now all he has is his personal travel ship and the clothes he packed. It’s understandably a lot. Jyn hugs Bodhi a few extra times before they depart.

The interstellar travel is deemed hard for Chirrut and Baze, physically. On top of that, they still have work to do on Tattooine—people grieving, people ready to act who may want to join the Resistance, strengthening the wills of people who feel there’s no choice but to surrender. Jyn and Cassian promise to call as soon as they touch down on Yavin, in numerous intervals after. There’s coordinating to be done. 

After all, Rogue One never knew how to play it safe and do as they were told.

“Any plan against the First Order at their current level of power has a very low chance of succeeding,” Kay says, still piloting because Cassian is worn out from that single moment of worrying his children were gone. He used to be so quick at recovering from a galaxy-wide disaster, where has the time gone?

“We have no choice, Kay.” Cassian shrugs. “They’re our children. The First Order has to be stopped.”

“I’m aware of that, I just wanted you to know.”

“So you’re saying…?”

“Did you think I would not help? After all of the time I had to spend getting to know those children because they were your progeny? I won’t have all of that time go to waste, Cassian.”

“Thanks, Kay. I’ll try to make sure you aren’t destroyed this time, okay?”

“I should hope so. Unless you have made another back-up, I would not be able to come back this time. My model is also extremely rare. And if you all die, there will be no one to bring me back.”

“Glad to know his priorities are in order,” Jyn comments, taking advantage of Cassian’s sitting position to seat herself on his lap. He can’t say it’s never happened, but Kay’s mocked her for the action before, and in the early days that could be enough to ward her off public affection.

Jyn tucks herself against his chest, as if trying to make herself smaller. “I know we said we were going to stay on the sidelines in all this. Are you sure about…?”

Cassian nods. “When the Resistance recovers, we’ll find an opportunity to help, and we’ll join them where ever they go next. I don’t care what the assignment is. We’re in this war until it’s over. Agreed?”

“Yes.” Jyn’s hand brushes the hairs against the back of his neck. “For the kids, for all of the people who were lost today and because we didn’t stand up against the First Order when we should have.”

 

* * *

 

The waiting is the worst part.

It’s a few hours before the first message, and it’s not from Lira or Dev.

_EMERGENCY TRANSMISSION — EVACUATION OF HOME BASE IMMINENT. DO NOT RETURN TO HOME BASE. AWAIT FURTHER ORDERS._

The Resistance isn’t exactly like the Alliance used to be, Cassian has discovered. In the heyday of the rebellion, Rogue One was one of many, many teams across the galaxy. Before that, Cassian had not been the first under the name of Fulcrum, and he was certainly not the only spy embedded within the enemy’s territory for periods of time.

The Resistance has fewer numbers, fewer resources. Not everyone who was Alliance before returned to fight again. Resources from the war were mostly either destroyed or assigned to supplement the New Republic’s forces.

It’s not unexpected. For all that the First Order seems like a resurrection of the Empire, they’re far more cut off from the galaxy as a whole. They don’t recruit the forces of the everyman. They don’t threaten the people to make them join their ranks. In the intel that Cassian has become privy too since agreeing to help the Resistance (that he probably wouldn’t have if he were anyone else, but Leia trusted he and Jyn, and that was that, ranks be damned,) the First Order has made their forces out of old Imperial soldiers and brainwashed children. There’s not as much access to inside information, or ways to get yourself recruited into the First Order for a cover. 

This means the Intelligence branch of the Resistance is small, combined with soldier recruits who are young like his own children, trained in simulations without ever having fired a real blaster. At least Poe Dameron has been shaping the navy up to be prepared, as far as he can tell. (Though sometimes the stories Lira tells him speak of too much fun and laughter for him to believe it.)

Overall, this means that Cassian, Jyn, and Bodhi have nothing to do—nowhere to go—and must instead sit on their hands and walk around the house like every other normal day.

Cassian makes jogan fruit pancakes in the morning, but instead of what he pictured the days without the kids to be like—leisurely, soft-lit, picturesque—Cassian ends up debating strategy with Bodhi and Jyn for an hour, the food mostly forgotten and soggy in syrup, too much caf sitting in his stomach.

They watch the news after, even though he knows Jyn hates the news—she finds the reporters droning and the information endless. People are scared, but unsure how to handle that fear. The New Republic is gone, and the First Order is seemingly primed to replace them. Some stations seem to fear the First Order. They’re too blissfully ignorant of it. The entire galactic government—senators from numerous worlds wiped out with a blink—and all they can discuss is if so-and-so is pregnant or if a document of minor importance is now not going to be passed.

Support for the Resistance is slim. People are scared of another war, just like they were, and don’t seem to want to put themselves on the side of the Resistance when it had previously been a secret rebellion. (He’d almost died to make people believe in the Alliance. Who would die in this generation of children for the Resistance to come into the public’s good graces?)

The first message comes from Lira. She’s decked out in her pilot suit, clearly in flight.

“Hi, Mama, Papa. The evacuation was—“ Lira swallows roughly, shaking her head. “It was rough. Commander Dameron—Poe went on the offensive, at the end. Almost didn’t make it out. A lot of people didn’t make it off of D'Qar. We’re escorting the _Raddus_ through hyperspace right now.”

Lira sighs. “I talked to Dev. He’s busy, but okay. He’s really good at this whole leadership thing, you know? He’s not like me, always running into things headfirst. He’s so calm. Like you, Papa. I know he’s not yours like I am, but I—I wish I’d gotten that from you, sometimes. I’m glad I’m quick in the air, but on the ground…I was so scared when the evacuation alarms went off. He just came right to me—like he _knew_ that was how I’d react, feet glued to the floor. He just ran up to me and said ‘Pack your things, Lira. As little as you can. Find your commanding officer and get the hell out of here. We have to make it home, remember?’”

“I just—my mind went blank. I knew I had to leave, that it wasn’t safe. I _wanted_ to leave. The First Order up close…it’s terrifying. They’re real creatures, just like anyone else, and they’re coming at us with ships and guns and before you know it an entire system is just _gone_!” Lira wipes a tear from her eye, smile so sad, breathing ramped up in panic and fear. Cassian wants to reach up to the holo and cup her cheek, hug her, his baby shouldn’t have to see this darkness—Force, why? “Anyway, I—I wanted to call. Tell you we’re alright. I love you. We’ll see you at the next base, okay? Give Uncle Bodhi a hug for me. Bye.”

Cassian’s brain wonders traitorously if that could be her last message—the last time he sees his daughter—but he can’t go through that again. The breakdown on Tantooine was the only one he’ll allow himself, even if his heart strains at just hearing her voice.

By the afternoon they’ve turned off the news and are instead turning to distraction. Fellow neighbors now involved with the Resistance (due to returning to the fight or via having children that left home to do so) come around a few times. 

Kes Dameron thanks them for the update that Poe is okay. 

Friends of friends give them names to keep an ear out for. 

Cassian and Jyn take a walk to the tree planted all those years ago by Shara Bey, and Jyn repeats a prayer to the Force that Cassian has heard from Chirrut countless times before under its leaves. 

He closes his eyes and curls his hands around his wife’s.

Dev’s message comes in the middle of the night. His beard is overgrown from its usual length, too many days of neglecting to trim it evident. He’s tired, Cassian knows. The kind of tired that leadership and doing the things other people won’t brings. He was so afraid of this.

“I’m not sure how to make this message,” Dev starts. “I don’t want you to think—I don’t want to scare you. I know you were trying to hide it, the other day, but Lira and I knew you were upset. I’m not sure I’ve ever seen you cry like that before, Papa. Happy tears, maybe, but not that.”

“They destroyed the bridge of the _Raddus_. Bastards. Our ships, so much of High Command just—“ Dev shakes his head, clearing his throat. “General Organa is in the medbay. Apparently she survived by the will of the Force alone, or something like that, if the rumors are true. We don’t have much time. They followed us through hyperspace. They made the impossible possible, and we’re running like all hells to the closest defunct Alliance base.”

“Mama, Papa…I’m sorry if you hate that I left. I know now why you didn’t want me to join this fight. It’s hard, and painful, and the losses…stay with you. But I hope you understand now why I had to.” Dev looks into the recorder. Looks at them. “The First Order will destroy everything in its reaches if we don’t stop them. That monstrous device was just the start. I know a long time ago you went against an enemy when they warned you not to. I guess I am too. Even if…even if I don’t make it, I want you to know that I love you both. You’re my parents, biological or not, and I’ll always be thankful that you took me in back then, even when I was being a shitty little nerfherder.”

Dev chuckles a little listlessly. “I’m trying to stay optimistic, but I have to leave soon. We’re evacuating—again. I wonder how many times you experienced that, running away from the Empire. I want to hear more of your stories, when—if I come home, I want to know more about the war. I want to know more about you guys. I wish I’d asked before. They were just stories before, you know? It was easy to separate those people from who you are now as my parents. So I want to know all about it, even if it’s hard, please tell me. Be honest. I’m sure Lira would like to hear them too.”

Dev looks off camera, as if checking to see if Lira is close by. “Don’t tell Lira I even thought about…about this being the end, okay? I’m trying to be strong for her. She wasn’t there when the ships exploded, but she was close. I’m sure she’s thinking about what could have happened, and about all the friends she lost, and…she doesn’t need this too.” Dev takes a shaky breath. Cassian knows the message is about to end. It’s so final, so worried, but oh, his boy is so brave, and he loves him. “I don’t want to say goodbye, but…I’ve got to go. People to corral onto the ships and all. I love you. Stay safe. I hope I’ll see you soon.”

Cassian promised himself that he wouldn’t break down again, but that certainly doesn’t stop the tears on both his and Jyn’s faces from falling. He’s so tired of crying already, and he fears there’s more to come.

 

* * *

 

When the galaxy feels most devoid of hope, Cassian has found, that’s when even a small number of people can bring it back. He was involved in that with Rogue One that first time. The Alliance coming together before that.

Now he’s reading another message from the Resistance, missed when Cassian and Jyn collapsed against each other in sleep on the couch after Dev’s message.

CALLING ALL RESISTANCE ALLIES — EMERGENCY HELP REQUESTED AT THE FOLLOWING COORDINATES. THE FIRST ORDER IS ATTACKING. WE NEED IMMEDIATE ASSISTANCE. PLEASE.

At that last word, Cassian and Jyn look at each other. The military in all its forms rarely practices putting emotion into even emergency beacons such as this. The Resistance is in real danger, as if they hadn’t known that from Dev’s fears alone.

“Go wake Bodhi, we have to—“

Bodhi stomps down the stairs, fully dressed and bag already packed. “Unlike you two, I don’t sleep through emergency communiques. We have to hurry. Crait is in the Outer Rim, but it’s on the other side of the damn galaxy.”

Jyn runs up the stairs, pressing a sloppy kiss to Bodhi’s cheek in thanks.

Cassian forgoes the kiss, but slaps the other man’s shoulder and gives it a firm shake. “You’re the best, Bodhi.”

“Yeah, yeah, hurry up already!”

Cassian finds Jyn literally throwing clothes off of her body, a pair of pants unzipped around her waist while she simultaneously digs for a different shirt to throw over her bra than the tank top she was wearing before she flung it across their bed. God, he loves Jyn more than anything else in all of the worlds. Even as one part of his brain is screaming in panic, worried and scared, he’s so enamored with her in the most simple of actions.

“Cassian, there are many times in my life when I enjoy the way you look at me and want to have sex with you because of it, but this isn’t one of them.”

She breaks him out of the spell, a cheeky smile gracing her features from where she’s leaning down to grab something from the bottom drawer of their dresser.

“I love you,” he says, stealing a quick kiss, wrapping himself around her in a way that should be awkward but is more comfortable, grabbling his own shirt and beginning to strip. He watches the way her eyes—still, after all these years—trace up and down his body. “Hypocrite.”

 

* * *

 

“This is taking too long.” Jyn paces for the umpteenth time, scratching at her bun and loosening it a little.

“I don’t control hyperspace, Jyn. I’ve got us on the fastest course. Other side of the galaxy, remember?” Bodhi slumps into his chair, resigned. “We’re going to be walking into who knows what, by the way. Do have a plan to—you know, deal with that?”

“Their message wasn’t exactly specific,” Cassian admits. “But I did bring the weaponry. As long as we can clear Crait’s atmosphere and get to the ground, we can help fight off the First Order and find somewhere to hide out.”

“And if we can’t do that?”

“We’ll likely die,” Kay interjects, unhelpful.

“Great.” Bodhi rolls his eyes and turns back to the pilot’s controls.

“At this rate, we won’t even make it in time to help do anything!” Jyn complains.

“We’re more bodies on the ground, Jyn.” Cassian sighs. “You and I both know that bigger numbers can mean better chances of success.”

“Not always,” she replies, clearly speaking of those first missions together to Jedha, to Scarif, beyond.

“You guys really just look at each other like _that_ all the time, don’t you? Unbelievable,” Bodhi dramatically jokes, the bit not new at all and so completely practiced to ruin every romantic moment Jyn and Cassian have ever had.

They look at him, unimpressed. Bodhi shrugs. “Someone around here has to lighten the mood.”

 

* * *

 

They’re too far to be of any use by the time they can get a message to the Resistance. More specifically, they find themselves speaking to an unknown girl and a very familiar Wookie when they hail every available Resistance channel available near-but-not-close-enough-to-get-shot to D’Qar and Crait.

“Rogue One?” The girl is so bright, even over the comms. _Luke_ bright. “Like the rebellion heroes?! I shouldn’t be surprised, considering the days I’ve had, but, stars!”

“Nice to meet you,” Bodhi says, smiling as he often has at their minor fame in comparison to Luke, Leia, and Han. “Since Chewie’s there, I assume the Falcon is back in business?”

“Doing our best,” the girl replies. “We’ve got as many Resistance members as we can handle on board, including General Organa. I’ll transfer you the coordinates to our next destination. Or, Chewie will. Still getting used to this old girl.” Chewbacca makes a noise of assent, and the coordinates come through onto the screen.

“Perfect, Rey. We’ll see you soon. First, can I ask—two names. Lira and Dev Erso-Andor, are they…onboard?” _Alive,_ Cassian thinks but doesn’t say. _Are my children alive?_

Rey hums, unsure. “I’m new to the Resistance. I’m afraid I wouldn’t know. I’ll get someone to ask around. I’m sure they’ll find you once we reach the ground.”

“Thanks. See you soon.” The entire ship sans Kay lets out a breath of relief. The Resistance is still alive, even if only in small numbers. As for Lira and Dev…they’ll find out soon enough.

 

* * *

 

Lira meets them once Bodhi’s ship hits the ground. It wasn’t exactly planned or anything. They simply land near the other small cluster of ships—the infamous _Ghost_ , a seemingly repurposed Special Forces TIE Fighter, and the _Millenium Falcon_ beat to hell but still standing tall amongst them all—and their daughter is sitting on a section of crates surrounding a fire where people are chatting and eating what appear to be ration bars.

One second Cassian is looking at Lira—thank the gods, his daughter, right here in front of him, the weight of possibly having lost her physically leaving and allowing him to breathe fully for what feels like the first time.

“Papa?” Lira mouths, mouth half full and paused from what was laughter before. She stands, the food falling from her fist. “Papa!” Lira runs at them full-tilt, shoving a few people and not even taking the time to apologize before jumping up to wrap her arms around Cassian’s neck.

“Hey, sweetheart,” Cassian says, bereft of much else. He can’t describe the feeling of holding her. He’d done it all her life, loved her since the first time she cried her first cry, and now she’s bawling into his shoulder and half off the ground and he just loves his daughter _so much_. “It’s okay, I know. I love you, it’s okay.”

Jyn joins in, wrapping her arms around Lira when she lowers herself to wrap around Cassian’s waist instead of his shoulders. They’re just a mess, the three of them, crying and trying to comfort and being comforted.

When a third weight is against him, Cassian wonders if it might be Bodhi, but he looks up from where he was buried in the dark hair of Lira’s head and sees Dev instead, his arms around Lira and Jyn, hands tapping against Cassian’s shoulders.

The famous Erso-Andor family—filled with Rogue One war heroes who saved the galaxy once, crying in a little cluster—his family. He’s so relieved, so filled with love, with hope.

They won’t be taken down by the despair of facing this war, he decides. It looms, it encapsulated them on Tattooine, but he won’t let it devour them. They’re together against the First Order, with the Resistance. 

All of them, Rogue One, now two generations full, won’t go down without a fight. They won’t go down at all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WHEW. I cut this last chapter realllly close to the due date, because the holidays were extremely busy. But here it is! With the news that the next Star Wars movie takes place a year after TLJ, who knows what will come next between the Resistance and the First Order, but as for this fic, this family is going to survive it together.
> 
> I hope everyone enjoyed Lira and Dev. I’m always indecisive about writing kids for Cassian and Jyn because I can see them with or without, but picturing this fic and what I wanted to do with it, I really wanted these kids to be here. I wanted Rogue One to go on, and I made Lira and Dev to do it.
> 
> sunburnracing, I hope you enjoyed your gift! I have zero idea what you had in mind, but I hope my self-indulgent angsty-fluffy-plotty mess fits your needs. It’s too long and A Lot but I enjoyed writing it SO MUCH, so know that you’ve actually given me a gift by letting me make this thing real.
> 
> Thanks for reading! I appreciate all comments, kudos, etc.! Feel free to leave comments about the whole fic, or individual comments per chapter. I love hearing feedback and I put too much effort into this damn thing to not know if anyone read it and enjoyed it.


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